Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer: Is Biden Expanding War?

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Prof. John Mearsheimer:  Is Biden Expanding War?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, February 8th, 2024. Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago joins us now. Professor Mearsheimer, it's always a pleasure. No matter what we're trying to get our arms around, and there is a lot, it's a pleasure to be able to interview you on all of this. I have a lot of questions on Israel, but the recent developments are in Ukraine. Shortly before we came on air, the United States Senate voted to cut off debate, a preliminary way of showing that two-thirds of the senators are in favor of it, to pass over to the House a package of $48 billion for Ukraine, $11 billion for Israel, $9 billion in humanitarian aid to Gaza, and $5 billion to the government of Taiwan.

So let's start with Ukraine first, without getting into the politics of whether it will pass the House. If it does, and we send $48 billion in equipment to Ukraine. Isn't this basically just slaughtering more Ukrainian boys? Yes, I think that's going to be the end result. It's important to remember that that huge slug of money, I think it was about $54 billion that the EU gave to Ukraine, was mainly for purposes of running the government. It wasn't for weaponry. A huge chunk of this money is for Ukraine to train its military, buy more weaponry, and do assorted other military tasks. So this is all for fighting the war. And you could justify it, I think, if you believe that Ukraine could use this money to actually prevail in the war. But Ukraine is not going to prevail. If anything, it's just going to lose more territory.

And therefore, this money is just contributing to an ongoing disaster. And I think it would make much more sense for us to push for a negotiated settlement rather than fund more fighting. Except that the President of the United States just keeps pushing, pushing, pushing. Cut number eight, Chris. This bill would also address two other important priorities. First, it provides urgent funding for Ukraine. I'm wearing my Ukraine tie, my Ukraine pin, which I've been wearing because they're in dire straits right now defending themselves against a Russian onslaught. A brutal conquest.

The clock is ticking. Every week, every month that passes without new aid, Ukraine means fewer artillery shells, fewer defense — air defense systems, fewer tools for Ukraine to defend itself against this Russian onslaught. Just what Putin wants. This is what he's been pushing for. And he managed to get all the Democrats in the Senate and one third of the Republicans in the Senate to go along with this. I don't know what's going to happen in the House, but they have such a different mindset on this war than you and the folks that I'm privileged to interview on this show. They seem to think that

by throwing more money out there, somehow there's going to be a different result. They don't have human beings to operate this equipment. Well, what's very interesting is that the president says that the Ukrainians are in dire straits. Just think about those words. They are in dire straits. He talks about the Russian onslaught. This is correct rhetoric, but what's the story he has to tell about how this money gets the Ukrainians out of these dire straits and not only stops the Russian onslaught, but reverses it. There's just no story here. It's just an assertion that this money is going to turn things around, but no explanation for how it does it. And if you look carefully at the balance of forces, it's quite clear that the

Ukrainians are doomed. They're not going to win. The Washington Post this morning published an interview with 12 Ukrainian soldiers. It says it interviewed at the front. I guess that means close to where the Russian weaponry was. And these 12 all told the Washington Post reporter that there are 40 soldiers remaining in their brigade and there are normally 400 per brigade and that they were typical of other brigades. Now, it's the Washington Post, so we don't know if this is CIA propaganda.

We don't know if it's true. But if it is true, if it is accurate, what does that tell you about the condition of the Ukrainian military at the spots where it is most needed? First of all, I think it's probably true, because as you well know, the Washington Post goes to great lengths to always tell the most positive possible story about the state of the Ukrainian military. And if the Washington Post is telling you that things are this bad, they obviously are that bad, if not worse. What does this all add up to? Again, it just tells you that the Ukrainians are doomed. In terms of the balance of manpower, they're in deep trouble. They can't affect a

meaningful mobilization to make up for all the manpower they've lost at the front lines. And in terms of weaponry, we can't supply them with the weaponry they need to redress the imbalance between them and the Russians. So this one only gets worse with the passage of the Ukraine military, and a person who commanded respect amongst military people internationally. It took him a week to do it, and he announced the replacement today. We'll play the clip in a minute. The announcement of the replacement does not resonate with me, except that it is not the head of intelligence that we all thought it was.

But my question to you before we get to this announcement and before we get to your analysis of the person that's replacing him is, of course, we're in favor of civilian control of the military, but why does it take a week? Did it take Harry Truman a week to fire Douglas MacArthur? I mean, why does it take a week to do this? Well, it was a very messy political process. Zelensky is very popular, and it was very difficult to fire him quickly, especially since he initially put up resistance. And furthermore, I think they had great difficulty firing Zelensky, firing Zelensky because there was no obvious replacement. And we'll talk about Siersky, General Siersky, who's replaced him, and he is far from an ideal candidate. So I

think all these things caused this process to drag out, and that certainly does not work to Zelensky's advantage. It makes him look indecisive and weak. And that's the last thing that he needs at this point in time. I don't know if this was time to the Senate vote and the likely follow-up vote in the House. I mean, that's just speculation. But we're going to play a clip of President Zelensky making this announcement. The clip was made today in Ukraine um it's not in English but I'll be reading the subtitles we spoke openly today about what needs to change the army urgent changes I suggested to General Zaluzny to be on the team of the Ukrainian state in the future I will be grateful for his consent today i decided to renew the leadership of the armed forces of ukraine it's not about surnames and even more so not about politics this is about

the system of our army about management in the armed forces of ukraine and about involving the experience of combat commanders of this war. Starting today, a new management team will take over the leadership of the armed forces of Ukraine. I want the vision of the war to be the same for our soldiers in Robatyn or Avdyka, and in the general headquarters and the top defense leadership. Tens of generals are being considered for leadership positions and will serve under the leadership of the most experienced Ukrainian commander, a true battlefield commander, Colonel General Alexander Sirsky. ...offended us in the past.

What can you tell us about Colonel General Alexander Sersky? We don't hear you. There we go. Let me make one preliminary point. It doesn't matter who you put in place of Zeluzhny. It's just not going to make much difference on what happens on the battlefield. As I said before, the Ukrainians are doomed. But General Sersky is not likely to be a good replacement for Zeluzhny. Sersky was very successful in the first year of the war in 2022. He played a key role as a commanding officer in the defense of Kiev in the early stages of the war. And then he got lots of credit for his role in the successful tactical offensive in the late summer, early fall of 2022 in the Kharkiv area. But over the course of 23, his reputation diminished significantly, and he became a very unpopular general. He was largely in charge

of the ground forces in Ukraine, and he was in charge of the Battle of Bakhmut. And many people feel that he handled that battle in the wrong manner, that he acted in a way that got the Ukrainians into a war of attrition, where they got bled white in Bakhmut. And this made no sense. Many of the troops in the Ukrainian army viewed him as a typical Russian general. And by the way, he is ethnically a Russian. And he was heavily criticized for that. So he's not very popular, unlike Zelensky. So you have a situation here where you fire a very popular general, and as we've talked about before on the show, Zelensky has much higher popularity ratings than does Zelensky himself. So you place Zelensky with a general, Sersky, who is not very popular in the ranks and

has a reputation for expending Ukrainian lives on the front lines in an unnecessary way. So I think this is not going to enhance Ukraine's prospects in the war in any way. But again, I think even if they had appointed a more brilliant general, it wouldn't matter because if you look at the material balance of power and the way things are developing, the Ukrainians are screwed. President Zelensky spent last weekend with Victoria Nuland. Do you have any reason to believe that her fine hand is involved in this? No, I don't see any reason to think that. I mean, he didn't have many choices. He could have picked Siersky or maybe one other general, the general who's the head of intelligence, but his that Nuland had little influence on the actual decision here.

I think she probably was trying to calm the waters somewhat. She may be responsible for the fact, I'm not saying this is true, but she may be responsible for the fact that Zeluzhny is going out with a smile on his face. I actually thought that when Zeluzhny was fired, that he would cause a real ruckus, because you want to remember, he's resisted it for a number of days now. Today, he looks like he has a smile on his face. An alternative hypothesis is that he understands where this ship is headed and that it's time to bail out, right? You know, if Sierski wants to deal with the next couple months, let him. He's welcome to try to fix the problem. And Zeluzhny will then move to the sidelines. So that's another explanation. But it could be that Victoria Nuland came in and talked to

Zeluzhny and told him that it made eminently good sense for him to leave, that the time was right. But who knows for sure? Well, Secretary Newland was in Kiev. The British Prime Minister, Sonek, made a suggestion that I thought was absurd and irregular, but he made the suggestion, and that is that the British would consider sending an expeditionary force. It must be a British term. I don't know what expeditionary means, other than the meaning of the word, as if you're going to explore some area with which you're unfamiliar. But the Brits would send

an expeditionary force of soldiers to Ukraine, and they would help enforce a no-fly zone over Kiev. Does the Prime Minister Sunak know what he's talking about? No, this is absurd. And they quickly backed off from that comment. And I mean, it just would be foolish in the extreme for the British or for any member of NATO to put forces on the ground in Western Ukraine or Central Ukraine at this point in time, or try to enforce a no-fly zone, because we would quickly end up in a great power war. It would be the United States and NATO against Russia, and this would be catastrophic. This is something that we want to avoid. So that's not going to happen. The United States is not going to let that happen. Biden, to his credit, has gone to great lengths not to get

the Americans directly involved on the ground here or in the air. And I don't think, given all the trouble that he has in the Middle East at this point in time, that he's looking to get involved on the ground or in the air in Ukraine. Transitioning to Israel, the United Nations is now not supplying aid or has diminished radically its aid in Gaza because of this Israeli allegation that many of its workers were supporters of Gaza. There are 30,000 of them. The Israelis say they have 12. Nobody has seen the Israeli evidence, although Secretary Blinken says it's, quote, very highly, highly, too highly credible. The Israelis released their so-called evidence to Channel 4 of the BBC and to CBS News,

both of which said that's a six-page summary. It's not evidence at all. Does the United States, has the United States put a big foot on the UN? How catastrophic, how un-UN like it is it, if you'll pardon that phrase, for the UN to stop supplying aid to the most desperate people on the planet? Well, I don't know what the United States and a number of other countries are doing here. were 12 people out of the 13,000 UNRWA workers in Gaza who were involved in some way in the events of October 7th. It's possible for sure. I mean, who would be surprised if a few out of those 13,000 people were involved? But you would expect to see some evidence. You would expect to see an investigation before any decision was made by the United States as to whether or not to continue funding UNRWA. But nevertheless, what we did is, without any evidence, we just all of a sudden said

we are withholding funding from UNRWA. And a number of other countries said the same thing. And given the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and the importance that this UN organization plays in dealing with that humanitarian disaster, it's hard to believe that without evidence, we all of a sudden just stopped our funding of UNRWA. How morally absurd is it for us to be supplying bombs with which to destroy Gaza and kill the Palestinians, and at the same time claiming we are supplying food and medicine to the Palestinians who are fortunate enough to survive the bombing and the killing? Look, there is no question that from a moral or ethical point of view, what the Israelis are doing in Gaza is completely unacceptable. As the ICJ found, there is enough evidence to support the conclusion that they are committing genocide.

And I think it's quite clear, as you and I have talked about before, that we are complicit in what looks like a genocide. And this is quite remarkable. And at the same time, we seem to be going to great lengths rhetorically to tell countries in the Arab and Islamic world and to tell Arab American voters in the United States that we are out to help the victims in Gaza and that we're going to provide aid to those victims and so forth and so on. So you have this situation which you you described, where on one hand, we're providing Israel with the weaponry to murder huge numbers of Palestinians. And on the other hand, what we're doing is providing billions of dollars in humanitarian aid. It all seems

absurd to me. Is the United States of America effectively waging war on the Palestinians in Gaza? Well, it's a lot like the situation in Ukraine. We're effectively fighting a war against the Russians. We're doing everything but pulling the triggers and pushing the buttons because we don't have troops on the ground in Ukraine, and we're not flying airplanes over Ukraine. If you go to Gaza, we don't have troops on the ground, at least troops that are engaged in combat, and we don't have aircraft over Gaza that are engaged in the bombing campaign. But we are providing the Israelis with intelligence and with huge amounts of weaponry. As many Israeli generals and many others in Israel have said, there's no way they could fight this war without American assistance. There was a piece in Haaretz I read the other day where the author of the piece said that this war has made it clear, and this wasn't clear before the war, how dependent Israel is on the United States. And I think that's clear. So I think we

are, you know, in effect, waging war against the Palestinians in Gaza in the same way that we're waging war against the Russians in Ukraine. Crazy. Before October 7th, we were led to believe that the Israeli government and the government of Saudi Arabia were on the verge of normalizing relations. Some people have argued that the Hamas attack on October 7th was intended in part to disrupt that. It has clearly disrupted it. And then it set some ground rules, with the borders of those states being 1967, with East Jerusalem being the capital of Palestine, and with Palestine being truly free to have its own security forces and military. Obviously, this is a non-starter with Netanyahu. Why would Riyadh be making a statement of this nature at this time? What's their ultimate purpose,

Professor Mearsheimer? Well, it's very clear that there is tremendous anger in the body politic in Saudi Arabia about what is going on in Gaza. And the elites, the governing elites in Saudi Arabia are well aware of this, and they have to be to say that it didn't matter whether you had a Palestinian state or not, just as long as there was a peace process in play. And if that were the case, the Saudis would cut a deal with the Israelis. The Saudi government was terribly upset by this comment because the Saudi government understands that they are sitting on a volcano. I think the Saudi governing elites basically don't care that much about what's happening to the Palestinians, if you want to know the truth. I think they would reach an agreement with Israel, even if there wasn't a Palestinian state. But Kirby's comment, coupled with the anger down below, forced the government to issue a statement on letterhead that said, as you described, that there would be no Abraham Accord until there was a Palestinian state that was based on the 1967 borders. That meant the

Palestinians would get all the West Bank, all of Gaza, and East Jerusalem would be the capital of that Palestinian state. This is never going to happen from an Israeli perspective, whether Benjamin Netanyahu's in charge or not. This is not going to happen. And that means you're never going to get an Abraham Accord unless the Saudi elites do a 180-degree turn. And the Saudi elites must know what you just said at the end of your summary. This is never going to happen no matter who the prime minister of Israel is. Yeah, I find it hard to believe anybody would think that it's possible to get a two-state solution that's based on the 1967 borders.

That's just not in the cards. There are just so many settlers now in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. It's just not going to happen. And therefore, you're not going to get an Abraham Accord. This all just shows you what a total mess we are in and the Israelis are in as well. If you look at the military situation with regard to the Houthis and these Iranian-backed militias, with regard to Israel's situation with Hezbollah and Israel's situation with Hamas. It's hard to

see how this works itself out militarily and diplomatically. We just talked about relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which before October 7th looked like they were going to be a real prize catch for the Biden administration. But now we're going in the opposite direction there. And the Russians and the Chinese are getting more involved in the region. It's now quite clear that there's going to be a major naval exercise involving the Chinese, the Russians, and the Iranians in the Middle East sometime in March. This is not good news because this means that it's almost impossible to put meaningful pressure on Iran. And if you would ever get into a war with Iran, you might end up seeing the Chinese and the Russians come to the aid of the Iranians. So things are just moving along very badly for the Biden administration.

What did the Biden administration gain by firing a drone from within Iraq into Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, to kill supposedly a Hezbollah commander and two civilians that happened to be in the way? I don't know. I think it was a remarkably foolish thing to do. I mean, there's no question that the Americans are bent on going after these militias that have been attacking American forces in both Syria and Iraq. And the person that they killed, the key person that they killed in Baghdad in the scenario you just described, was one of the commanders of the militia that killed those three Americans. But it's very important to emphasize that that particular militia is

closely affiliated with the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government is very angry about the fact that we're launching military strikes on its territory. And here we go and we bomb a target in Baghdad and we kill someone who is in one of the militias that is closely associated with the governing forces in Baghdad. This is not going to work to our advantage. It's going to increase the pressure to push us out of Iraq and cause us further problems in the region. This is the same Baghdad that we spent a trillion dollars liberating from Saddam Hussein because he supposedly had weapons of mass destruction, which we now know he never had. This is the same Baghdad that has basically said to us,

get the heck out of our country and we won't leave. Do I have this right, Professor Mearsheimer? Yes. I mean, what happened here is that we went into Iraq and we put a Shia government in place that was going to happen inevitably because of the demographics of Iraq. There were many more Shia than Sunni. Saddam, remember, was a Sunni. So we got a Shia government, and then the Sunnis revolted. And in effect, they did that, or many of them did that, by creating ISIS. And you remember, we got out in 2011, then we came back in 2014. And the reason we came back in 2014 was to deal with ISIS. And the main reason that we still have troops in Iraq and in Syria is because of ISIS. Those troops were brought in to deal with ISIS. So this is a total mess. One more subject matter I want to mention to you. My friend and former Fox colleague, Tucker Carlson,

is about to interview President Putin. I happen to think this is a terrific, terrific opportunity for the world to see Putin in the presence of a well-known, though controversial, American journalist. Before I ask you your... I don't know why I'm laughing in a second. Before I ask you your opinion of this, I want you to see Hillary Clinton's opinion of this. What does that tell you about Tucker Carlson and right-wing media and also Vladimir Putin? Well, it shows me what I think we've all known. He's what's called a useful idiot. I mean, if you actually read translations of what's being said

on Russian media, they make fun of him. I mean, he's like a puppy dog. You know, he somehow has, after having been fired from so many outlets in the United States, he, I would not be surprised if he emerges with a contract with a Russian outlet because he is a useful idiot. He says things that are not true. He parrots Vladimir Putin's pack of lies about Ukraine. So I don't see why Putin wouldn't give him an interview because- Any thoughts on this, Professor Mearsheimer? Well, it's typical of the way the foreign policy establishment, and this, of course, includes Hillary Clinton, deals with people who disagree with them. Instead of dealing with the substance of the dispute, what they do is engage in name-calling. He's a useful idiot. He's Putin's

puppet. He's not very smart, so forth and so on. Remember what Hillary said about Donald Trump's supporters. She said that they're deplorables. This is a remarkably foolish thing to say. And you basically see the same line of attack at play here. Look, you don't have to agree with Putin and you don't have to agree with Tucker Carlson. Vladimir Putin is a world historical figure. He matters greatly to the United States. He has a particular view of the world. He has a particular view of the Ukraine conflict. He has a particular view of the Biden administration in the United States. Would it be a good thing to hear what he is thinking about all of those matters? I think it would be a good thing to hear.

Tucker Carlson, whether you like him or not, is a very smart man. He is basically sympathetic to Putin. He's not antagonistic. And I think what that means is that he will give Putin a chance to develop his arguments in a sophisticated way. People can agree or disagree. But the problem is that this is not the way we operate in the United States these days. There's just so much Russophobia and so much hysteria about Putin that the mere thought of Tucker Carlson interviewing Vladimir Putin drives lots of people crazy, and it causes them to act in foolish ways. And that's what you got with Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton should be acting in a more distinguished way. This is a woman who was a former Secretary of State. This is a woman who's very accomplished. She almost

became President of the United States. For her to talk about Putin and Carlson like that makes her look like a fool. And I don't think it's in her interest to look like a fool. And I don't think it's in our interest as a country for our leaders to talk about people they disagree with like that. It just leads to nothing but trouble. Professor Mearsheimer, thank you very much, my dear friend. I think a lot may happen in the next few days, and we may have to call you back. If not, I hope we can see you next week. All the best.

All the best to you. Thank you. A brilliant and gifted man who honors all of us when we have these conversations. Another brilliant and gifted man coming up at 4.30 Eastern, just a little under an hour from now, on all of this, on Hillary Clinton, on Tucker Carlson, on Vladimir Putin, on aid to Ukraine, on aid to Israel, on aid to Gaza. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, 4.30 today Eastern. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.